Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-02-01
ABOUT NAILS.
SHORT" TAI.ES ABOUT WHEELING
AND HER INDUSTRIES.
Nails Should Have III Intrinsic Value Like 6oia or
Silvs-0thsr Interesting Chat
About the City.

In the current issue of the Age Of Sted
''Cold Short" has a most interesting II
instructive letter. From it we clip the
following:
mails are quiet. There are some IN
ouiries coming in TO the Wheeling factories
but there is q tincture OF uncertainty per,
yading the trade as to prices. There need
he no incertitude rs % the maintenance oil
the last advance 10 a ST. 0 card. As to
another advance 10 s.. 20 that is, OF course,
uncertain. The dispropOrtion between
raw materials-iron at $3.50 and steel
slabs at S33. and nails at S2.6O-s mater
ial. Nails cost the producer so close 10
s.. So that there is precious little small
change left. Deduct the customary allow
ances. rebates, discounts, etc, from
s.. 90 and the margin left IS not
very large. In order to bring the nail bus
mess into a legitimate position there
should be a determined margin between
the selling and cost price, so as to allow
for contingencies, such As fluctuations oil
assortments, etc, and this should be all OF
Soc. Sharp competition has begOtten per-
ceptible abuses of legitimate business
methods. Among these are agencies, al
lowances, rebates, deliveries, etc. A
fixed price at factories, with the proper
cash discount, would be easily under
stood, and, if eyaded or cut, EARLY de-
tected. Nails should have, OF course, reg
ulated by ordinary business laws, an in
trinsic value, Just as gold and silver have.
O~yer-productlOn is considered a problem
as vet, but the solution is in the hands or
at the service OF the producers, if they de-
sire to make use of ii.
AZ observe that Pittsburg and Wheeling
manufacturers rely on outside points for
the most important parts Of the mechan'
ical equipments Of their mills and facto-
ries, or at least they send their orders to
distant Giles. THIS, it strikes me, for iron
and steel manufacturing centres, of world
wide prominence and assumptions, is
anomalous if not ~plrldoxical. Where
there has been SO much extraordinary me-
chanical genius, ability and expertness de-
yeloped, with both ample capital and in
telligent enterprise ready and anxious to
assist in bringing all meritorious plans,
processes, devices and schemes
into practi cable and profitable utility
there should be no lack of talent and skill
for the devisingand building Of machinery,
and | do not believe there is. Foreign
articles like stolen sweets, seem to receive
the highest appreciation, and this Is very
poor philosophy, worse policy and utter
want of judgment, a community assuming
TO be superemiuent i'll a great industry
should be vigilant i'll bringing all the de-
partments, all the i%ntegrants. all the uX-
~lliaries of this industry up TO the highest
point of excellence, else their boosted
reputation is fictitious, nothing but
bald assumption, for it is in-
complete, the connection is
faulty, its strength is as that of a chain,
whose integrity is to be estimated only at
the strength OF its weakest link. From the
beginning of civilization, necessity, in other
words, our requirements, whether n~ecessi-
ties or otherwise, have stimulated often
compelled, the creation OF agents or sup
plies to satisfy and accommodate them, aud
there Is no exception i'll such cases rs these,
they are rather more certain 10 occur.
"The Virginia and West Virginia man
ganese ore fields are again attracting the
attention of Besscmer steel makers. There
are StNtIdl Niluatbl hCpOolNo III IL
yinia, said To assay rich in this desirable
speciality, to which my attention has been
requested, but they are not easily accessi-
bic, as they are too far from railroads;
however, If progress and development
continue at the rate they have recorded
during the past W years, these mines
will come into the market before long. A
new process for reducing iron, called the
pneumatic process Is TO be tested III this
city by which, it is claimed, the quality of
wrought iron can be enhanced about 40
per cent. The principle is comparatively
simple. The raw material is first acted on
IN an ordinary BesSemer converter but be-
fore the re-carbOnizIug process is completed,
1t is transferred 10 4 revolving reVerbera-
tory furnace.
The Bellaire Nail Works Company have
started to make nails again after being of,
in that department of their works, for the
last six mouths. They restricted their
product during that time to steel, OF which
they produced 70, 600 tons in a run some
little short OF -four months.
In a purely sympathetic vein, | feel
like eondOling with the Alabama land
b perbolists, who have been preparing to
upset the prominence of this district with
the inconceivable rich and universally |
adaptable and applicable iron ores OF the
Birmingham district. The recent action
of the Roanc Iron Company of Chatta-
nooga in contracting for 10000 tons of
foreign iron, pricks that Birmingham bub-
BILE in bad shape. Their ore is beyond
question very plentiful but it is also very
lean. There is likely to be a goadly lot
of Northern SPECTATORS rather sharply sold
if the recent newspaper reports Of sales,
syndicate organizations and contempla-
tions are true. There is almost too much
varnish on these rumOrs to be built out of
sound timber"